Lead in bullets threatens recovery of condor

We are about 14 kilometres along a high, winding track that overlooks Big Sur - one of the world's most spectacular coastlines - when my companion hits the brakes. "There's a condor, right there," says Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Ventana Wildlife Society in nearby Salinas.

An enormous black-grey vulture, with a wingspan approaching 3 metres, has hopped out of a water-filled concrete trough and is now perched on its rim, a few tens of metres away. Sorenson cuts the SUV's engine and the condor stretches. I peer through my binoculars: "Oh, wow, you can clearly see the white on the underside of the wings."

This bird is a young male nearly 4 years old, and the product of a heroic species recovery effort. By 1987, when the last wild California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) was taken into captivity, there were just 27 left. But the captive population bred well, ...

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